


watered my heart till it grew

by annperkinsface



Series: tea and swords [3]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22530025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annperkinsface/pseuds/annperkinsface
Summary: "You don't like me," says Vergil, amusement thick in his voice at the thought, and Kyrie's back stiffens. She had thought she was alone in the kitchen, left to clean up while Nero had been tasked with getting the kids ready for bed. Kyrie looks back at him, some of her hair falling over her shoulder, and the voice in her head that sounds entirely too much like Nero thinks: No shit, Sherlock.
Relationships: Kyrie & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Kyrie/Nero (Devil May Cry)
Series: tea and swords [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1344823
Comments: 10
Kudos: 148





	watered my heart till it grew

i.

Nero comes in from outside and she makes him sit at the table, relishing the flicker of surprise when she makes to stand between his spread legs, the unquestioning way he lets Kyrie tilt his head back so she can pluck grass from his hair, so easy, so accommodating, so dear. "You've made less of a mess of yourself than usual," says Kyrie, cupping his cheek in her other hand, warm with heat, rounding with his smile, and wonders if it's the sun or her, making him run so hot. Or maybe she's being too sentimental and it's all his demon blood, Nero burning as hot as a furnace even in the coldest Fortuna winters. "I'm almost proud."

"I know you hate when I track bloodstains," says Nero, his eyes and voice bright in a way it never is talking to anyone else, and Kyrie shakes her head fondly, scratching the back of his neck. His hands have come up to bracket her hips and she feels grounded by the touch.

"I hate when you bleed at all," Kyrie gently corrects. Doesn't matter if it's for five or fifteen minutes. She hates it all the same. But the thing about loving Nero is this: It isn't about accepting there is something violent and primal in him she will never understand as much as it is accepting there are only certain parts of him she can keep safe. Kyrie thinks a part of her will always wrestle with that, wrestles with it now when Nero is having friendly afternoon spars with the man that cut off one of his limbs and all she can do is wait for him to trudge home and pluck grass from his hair.

It doesn't feel like enough and her mouth must have twisted unhappily because Nero's eyes sharpen then soften all at once. "I know, I'm sorry," he says, rubbing soothing circles onto her hips, and cuts a grin up at her, entirely too boyish and charming. "Hey, don't you want to hear about how I kicked the old man's ass? Socked him a new one just for you, Kyrie."

A snort and then a laugh, as bright and unexpected as Nero himself. "How romantic," she says, wryly, but the smile in her voice is audible and she moves her hand from Nero's cheek to his shoulder so she can lean down and feather her lips over his jaw, cheek, all the way to the corner of his mouth, pressing her smile there and lingering for one breath, two. She straightens, still smiling, and freezes when she catches sight of the figure in the entryway, tries to force herself to relax but it is too late: Nero must have felt her tense because he is scowling mightily when he cranes his head to get a look. 

"Oi, old man, what did I tell you about lurking? Make some fucking noise next time, why don't you?"

"I fail to see how it is my problem if your demonic senses are lacking," Vergil says and he doesn't look awkward or stiff or anything but coldly imperious standing in their doorway and it makes Kyrie quietly furious, especially when he cuts a glance towards her and says, "I hope your cooking is as palatable as your tea."

She doesn't want to cook for this man. She doesn't want anything to do with this man, truthfully, but this is a moment, a big one. For all that Vergil indulges in sparring and afternoon tea he's yet to accept any of Nero's invitations to dinner. It's a tightrope they have walked in the past few months and Kyrie had been grateful, finding his small intrusions in her home—in their life—almost too much to bear. Intruder, she wants to scream, biting down on her tongue to keep the words behind her teeth. Interloper. Kyrie strives to be kind, to be gracious, and it would be easy to misinterpret that and think she was saintlike in her capacity for forgiveness when really, she was as capable of anger and hatred as anyone else.

Nero's scowl only deepens. "Hey, just because I invited you for dinner doesn't mean Kyrie is obligated to cook for you, asshole—"

"It's fine," Kyrie says, turning away from Vergil's eyes, so sharp and knowing, like he could dissect her at a glance, forcing a smile because it is Nero and she loves him and she won't deny him the chance to have the man is his father be a part of his life, whatever that looks like. "We were just going to have leftovers anyway."

ii.

Ironically enough, the first time Kyrie meets Vergil is over dinner; Nero had introduced him as V and he had seemed so frail, like the slightest breeze could knock him over, but there was iron in his words and the clench of his knuckles—thin, pale—around his cane. Still, the slant of his mouth had curved so prettily when he had quoted William Blake and she had responded by quoting some of his verse back, genuine warmth and pleasure banking in his eyes.

She hadn't known V very long but she had liked him, had wanted to know more about him, about the shadows she and Nero had managed to ever so briefly chase from his eyes.

Vergil is not V. Or: he is, or was, or maybe none of it matters, really, the technicalities. Wondering if knowing now what she didn't then would color her opinion of that sad, strange man who had smiled so honestly, like a child, thrilled by the small pleasure of discussing poetry he loved with another human being.

iii.

"You don't like me," says Vergil, amusement thick in his voice at the thought, and Kyrie's back stiffens. She had thought she was alone in the kitchen, left to clean up while Nero had been tasked with getting the kids ready for bed. Kyrie looks back at him, some of her hair falling over her shoulder, and the voice in her head that sounds entirely too much like Nero thinks: No shit, Sherlock.

"Nicoletta says you like everyone," Vergil continues once he sees he has garnered her attention, "and yet your disdain for me is quite palpable. You hide it well but senses as keen as mine can pick it up easily."

Kyrie stares at him for a long moment and then turns resolutely forward. Her lips are suddenly dry so she wets them with her tongue and determinedly turns the faucet on. "You don't strike me as someone who is preoccupied with whether he's liked or not," she says over the sound of running water, zeroing in on some crusted pasta on one of their prettier plates and scrubbing until it flakes off. It'd be a good distraction if she wasn't so hyper aware of Vergil standing somewhere behind her, his gaze boring into the back of her head.

"I'm not," says Vergil. "I just find it curious."

Curious, she mouths disbelievingly. Like he has a right to anything from her, least of all curiosity. Kyrie turns the water off, staring straight ahead and gathering breath in her lungs. All she can hear now is the silence between them, reminding her that this man is a stranger—no, worse than a stranger, because she and Nero have always made it a point to treat strangers with kindness, with compassion, and this man was a flagrant betrayal of all that, had crossed the threshold into their home and hurt Nero in a way no one has before or, truthfully, since, in a way that was still felt even now with a new arm to replace the one he had lost. Trauma changes people, the brain most of all, and all the cool, careful logic in the world wouldn't change the fact that sometimes Nero's brain just couldn't accept the reality of having an arm after having his old one be so violently torn away. Kyrie breathes in, out, and methodically dries her hands with a cloth before turning and pinning him with her gaze. Vergil just stares placidly back, raising one of his eyebrows. She tucks some of her hair behind her ear, leaning her back against the counter and raising an eyebrow of her own. "Do you think you are easy to like?"

That flicker of amusement again but it's the wry twist to his mouth that takes her by surprise, seeing the ghost of it superimposed on a thinner mouth. It doesn't matter, Kyrie thinks once the shock of it passes. V, Vergil—what did it change, really? She stubbornly clings to her anger all the same. "I don't believe I'll be winning any popularity contests any time soon."

"Probably not," says Kyrie but the truth is this: He hasn't been an entirely unpleasant house guest. Haughty and cold, certainly, but there was a strange fondness tempering his harshest barbs towards Nero, none of Nero or Dante's easy warmth but a subtle sense of pride and satisfaction. But at the end of the day that all mattered very little to her. No, what mattered was Nero, Nero who had been glowing throughout the whole affair, alternating between brightly insulting Vergil with every other breath and watching like a hawk to make sure he had cleared his plate.

"Yet you continue to make me tea without fail."

"The tea is for Nero, not just yourself," Kyrie corrects, a half truth, and the way Vergil smiles like he's caught her in an amusing lie cements it. The second time she had met Vergil all she could see was the strong, tense line of Nero's back, all she could hear was the poorly concealed grief and anger in his voice. Tea seemed like the easiest diffuser even if she wouldn't have protested at Nero throwing him out on his ass. Now it had become a point of connection, a way of tying them together that was stronger and less fickle than blood. I was his family first, Kyrie thinks, but doesn't say. She isn't possessive of that fact so much as protective. For a long, long time they were all the other had. You weren't there, she doesn't say. When he woke up gasping for air with tears on his cheeks clawing for an arm that wasn't there; when he wakes up gasping for air clawing for an arm that is. I was. I am.

But she would be foolish to ignore that he is now. As presumptuous and aloof as he is Nero's father stands in her kitchen, back straight, gaze unwavering, casually taking up space with a certainty that he belongs there, carving out room in their lives as well as Nero's all too human heart. She can't protect Nero from this. More than that, he doesn't want her to. To love is to let yourself be vulnerable, to allow yourself the possibility of being hurt. All Kyrie can do is love him and hope his trust isn't misplaced.

"You're right, I don't like you," says Kyrie, as plainly as she has ever said it to another person, and there is something exhilarating about this kind of honesty, no cushioning her words with sweetness to soften the blow. "You may have Nero's forgiveness but you haven't earned mine."

Vergil silently takes his measure of her. Kyrie stands her ground, tilts her chin and lets him look, pride making her chin stubborn. After a long moment he gives a short, brusque nod, his mouth faintly curled, and she might be mistaken but Kyrie thinks there is new respect tempering the amusement in his eyes when he now looks at her. "Hn," he says, and Kyrie tries not to make a face, understanding Nero's complaints about his father's frustrating, monosyllabic replies. "Understood."

iv.

"You could always put poison in his tea," suggests Nero, cheerfully. "I don't think it would do jack shit but the look on his face—man, that shit would be hilarious."

Kyrie hides her smile in his chest. There's something about the darkness of a bedroom, of a heartbeat under your ear, a loved body in your arms. The fabric of Nero's sleepshirt is scratchy under her cheek, worn with age, but there is something precious about moments like this even if they have been in them hundreds of times. Kyrie props her chin on his chest and looks up only to find Nero already looking back, all the softness in the world in his eyes. He cards a tender hand through her hair, smiling, and Kyrie is struck all over again by the fact that this is the Nero only she gets to see. Her beautiful boy, so gentle and sweet and easily bruised under all that bluster. A heart she cradles tenderly between her cupped palms, recognizing how delicate it really is even if the rest of the world doesn't.

"I'm not going to poison your father," Kyrie says around a throat suddenly much too tight.

"C'mon, live a little," he says, his mouth broadening into a grin. "It's not like he wouldn't deserve it."

She thinks of Nero and Vergil in a slant of light in the kitchen, a strange picture of domesticity as they banter over tea. She thinks of the glow of satisfaction in Nero's eyes when he comes back from one of their spars, grabbing her cheerfully by the waist and crowing about how he really gave that asshole what for, you should have seen it, Kyrie, if only that fucker didn't heal so goddamn fast. Fucker, old man, asshole—all interchangeable ways of saying the same thing, all poor attempts at disguising Nero's gruff affection. She thinks about fathers and sons and how forgiveness means something a little bit different to everybody, that there is no right or one way. "You love him," Kyrie says, gently, as sure as anything because that is who Nero is. Once he is in, he is all in. There is no letting go, no turning back.

"I love _you_ ," Nero retorts, hotly, and there is fear there, a flash of that orphan boy who only had Kyrie and Credo to call his own, but Kyrie lets it be, lets Nero come to terms with the feeling on his own time.

"I love you too," she says, curling her fingers over his heart, and Nero ducks his head down, presses his lips to her hair.

She doesn't put poison in Vergil's tea the next time he comes to visit. She tries a new brew and he compliments it in a way that is both incredibly sparse and stilted but still miles better than any of his previous attempts and as Kyrie watches Vergil and Nero from the window as they head outside she thinks about a day in the far future—if they were alone and she were to quote William Blake—would Vergil's smile look the same as V's or would his face be different, some brand new expression she had never seen?

**Author's Note:**

> so this series still yet lives!! i have been wanting to tackle vergil and kyrie interacting for the longest time and this was a really interesting writing exercise. i wanted to explore kyrie being a Person who gets rightfully pissed at her boyfriend's shitty demon dad even as she tries to be supportive of his decision to have a relationship with him. it was a lot of fun. let me know if it worked for you guys!


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